5 Things to Crowdfund

December brings us the most varied local projects to crowdfund yet. Do you like goats? How about “eating sandwiches”? Give someone the gift of helping their project come into the world.

December 3, 2013; 6:29 AM • by Sam Davies

1. Let’s Use Goats

The Enrichmond Foundation is building an Urban Apple Orchard in Chimborazo Park. Instead of using herbicides to clear the land, they came up with what I hope will be the official RVA motto of 2014. Urban orchard? “Let’s use goats”. Baseball Stadium Controversy? “Let’s use goats”. Meal tax? “Let’s use goats”. The possibilities are endless.

• Goal: $5,000
• Campaign Ends: December 15th
• Best Reward: $50 is a paltry sum to get to nickname a goat “Dr. McGoaterson”.

2. Commonwealth Roller Derby: Junior League

Roller derby first entered my life at a time when most of my enjoyment had an ironic flavor (pretending to like something I wasn’t supposed to or shunning things that everybody else liked). I love watching roller derby. No motive, no agenda, just humans with punny names, going around in a circle while hitting each other, on roller skates.

Help Commonwealth Roller Derby form a junior league (ages 7-17) that I can force my daughters to join.

• Goal: $3,000
• Campaign Ends: December 13th
• Best Reward: $50 gets you and a friend admission to one of the practices (and stickers too).

3. Monument City Coffee and Records

Full disclosure: I have a desk at the 1E space at the Times-Dispatch building. From where I sit every workday, I can see the sign for this coffee-shop-to-be, and I want it to open as soon as possible. I like coffee. I don’t like walking far. I hear also there will be records.

• Goal: $8,000
• Campaign Ends: December 18th
• Best Reward: “The Single”. For $7 you can choose a physical greeting you will receive at the shop. Choices include: handshake, high five, fist bump, chest bump, or back pat.

4. Desktop Gremlins

Growing up, I wouldn’t use my stickers; I would horde them in case of a sticker apocalypse. My daughters have no such reservations, happily covering every surface with stickers, cutting paper with abandon, and littering the house with beads. Local creator David Landis has a coloring book perfect for them. With nothing but scissors and markers, my kids can create 3D robots, pixies, and zombies to their hearts’ content.

• Goal: $3,000
• Campaign Ends: December 11th
• Best Reward: The Inventor’s Twin Bundle ($33). Get two professionally printed copies of the book for your kids to destroy and a PDF version for their continued printing and destruction pleasure.

5. AC Greebs Smoking Steel

Do you like to light plants on fire and inhale the smoke into your lungs? Do you wish it were easier to convert regular plastic bottles into efficient instruments to get that smoke into your lungs? Do you wish to more easily clean devices that helped get smoke into your lungs? If you answered yes to the above, this stainless steel device is for you.

• Goal: $10,000
• Campaign Ends: January 8th
• Best Reward: At $49, the Early Bird Classic gets you this device (shipped in a discreet box or envelope) before Christmas.

Funded

Projects we’ve featured in the past that have met their funding goals:

1. Li’l Eddie: Edgar Allan Poe for kid

December 3, 2013 6:29 AM 0